1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and system that allows an end-user to enable functionality in a communications device and, more specifically, that allows an end-user to enable functionality built into the physical (PHY) layer of the communications device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Communication devices like cellular telephones or modems are available using a variety of waveforms for their PHY layer. The PHY layer is the physical, electromagnetic means by which bits of information are transmitted and received over the transmission medium. As sold, most communication devices implement a single variant of PHY layer while more advanced devices will implement more PHY layer protocols to accommodate various types of transmission, such as data as well as voice. For example, some cellular telephones implement a Global System for Mobile Communications or GSM PHY layer and others implement a code division multiple access or CDMA PHY layer. To increase data rates and mitigate multipath, some advanced networks, including so-called 4G wireless networks such as WiMAX (802.16m) and LTE, have adopted variations of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveforms for their PHY layer.
OFDM is considered to efficiently use bandwidth but also is considered to be sensitive to channel imperfections and inaccuracies in reception and processing. One of the elements of an OFDM receiver that helps mitigate the potential sensitivities of OFDM systems is an accurate channel estimation algorithm that is embedded in the PHY layer of the communication device. Channel estimation in OFDM systems attempts to model the environment that the received signal has passed through and to use that model to determine one or more filters for the received signal to recognize and recover the transmitted signal accurately. OFDM systems typically utilize frequency domain channel estimation (FDCE) because OFDM processing occurs in the frequency domain and frequency domain channel estimation is consequently comparatively simple. In FDCE, the received signal is converted from the time domain into the frequency domain using a fast Fourier transform (FFT), typically before channel estimation is performed. This makes frequency domain processing for channel estimation both convenient and low complexity. Some academic studies suggest using time domain channel estimation (TDCE) for OFDM systems, which is necessarily complicated to improve the receiver performance.
Modern cellular phones, such as so-called smartphones, typically use one of the mobile operating system (OS) standards known in the art, including for example Google's Android OS, Apple's iPhone OS or iOS, Research in Motion's (RIM) OS, Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, and the like. These smartphones utilizing a mobile OS provide support for third-party software, also referred to as applications. Many network carriers offer their users application stores, or app stores, where users can purchase and download these applications. These applications typically provide entertainment or user interface updates. For example, many applications are available for games that users can play on their communication device. Other examples include user interfaces adapted to browse or update special interest information (for example, desired categories of news or specific social networking sites). Notably, these conventional cellular phone applications do not reconfigure the hardware or enable or disable specific circuitry in the device.